


Snapshots

by gravehound



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Animal Death, Cannibalism (Mentioned), Explicit Sexual Content, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Chronological, Nonbinary Character, Post-Project Purity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:59:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12435231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravehound/pseuds/gravehound
Summary: Moments in time of a Lone Wanderer's life after Project Purity.





	1. Deathclaw-Watching Is the Wasteland's Birdwatching

**Author's Note:**

> rating, tags, relationships, warnings, etc. will be updated as chapters are posted. these are just ficlets written when i feel like drabbling with my lone so they're not necessarily in chronological order and there isn't gonna be regular updates.

Deathclaws are interesting creatures.

The last two years had revealed a lot about them. Females were their leader, always - she was bigger, stronger, and controlled their future. The males would sacrifice their lives in an instant to keep her and their offspring safe. They killed, as anyone knew, indiscriminately. Yet more than once they had been witnessed pausing, assessing, measuring the situation, sometimes changing course. They were smarter than most people gave them credit for.

That was why Lone was where they were now, legs hanging off the quarry cliff’s edge, watching the deathclaws move far beneath. Their backpack rests on the ground a few feet away, an open bottle of water beside them, weapons set aside. They have no intention of killing the monsters below, blissfully unaware of their presence. They simply watch.

A nest had hatched recently. The babies swarming at the matriarch’s feet everywhere she goes couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, still tripping over their own feet and squawking for help when they hit the dirt. Each time she stops, turns, wraps fingers ending in the notorious killer claws carefully around the baby and sets it back on its feet.

The males keep their distance whenever she and the children take the journey from den to water and back again. They would aid in raising them, but not until later. For now, any other beast that ventures too close is snarled at in warning and quickly retreats. They stay around the edges of the quarry, patrolling, keeping a close watch on the one way in or out. They never think to look up.

Most people think deathclaws are mindless killers, slaughtering for no reason except they can. They’re the wasteland’s apex predator, and everyone knows it - no one likes it. Sometimes, Lone had to wonder how often someone who met or heard about them felt similarly to the way one feels when meeting a deathclaw or hearing tales of their slaughter.

In Lone’s mind, there had only been a single time a kill of theirs was unjustified. Still, that single time was enough - Megaton would haunt them for the rest of their days, and after Purity, there would be a lot of days.

Nonetheless, they know how most of the Capital felt about them. Sure, they had gone on to do plenty of good after Megaton. The inhabitants of Tenpenny, who they learned far too late were as twisted as the land, attested to that. As did the fresh water flowing through the Potomac. Still, many would never forget Megaton, just as Lone wouldn’t. They didn’t blame anybody for that but themselves.

Leaving the Capital had been a non-choice. Their time there was up once Purity was working and the Enclave was defeated, and not only was there no reason to stay, they would be better off leaving. Only Butch and Dogmeat followed. The dog because he didn’t know better - Butch, Lone sometimes suspects, for much the same reasons.

An ecstatic roar comes from below, drawing their attention back to the pack of beasts. The alpha male had returned. The claws of one of his massive hands were embedded deep in a brahmin corpse, dragging it along the ground behind him, and it’s shortly delivered directly to the matriarch where she waits patiently at her den’s entrance.

The males get nothing. They could hunt for and feed themselves - only their female was delivered food. For a few moments, Lone watches as the massive creature and her handful of tiny children dig into the meat, blood staining the soil as they consume huge mouthfuls.

Footsteps approach, but they don’t even twitch. Lone knows who it is long before he speaks as he carefully lowers himself onto the edge beside them. “It’s taken care of,” he says, and they peek at him out of the corner of their eye. The stealth suit’s hood is down for once, their vision unimpaired by the bright orange of its visor.

Butch is looking worse for wear. He no longer keeps his hair in that ridiculous pompadour - he finally gave up on it a year before. The jacket, however, stays eternally. They doubt they’ll ever see him outside without it, even if it’s now covered in shoddily patched rips and, in one place, scorched significantly. Part of them doesn’t blame him. The other part, the part that left the armored Vault suit behind in the Capital, finds it ridiculous.

Sometimes, they suspect he regrets following them.

“The kid alright?” they ask, finally, after a minute has passed filled by only the distant sound of deathclaws ripping into flesh. Alright is relative. After the kind of situation they found her in, she’ll never be alright again. People don’t recover from eating their dead mom.

He shrugs, wrinkling his nose as he gazes down into the quarry beneath them before looking back up at Lone. “Older couple in Nepon took her in. Got six kids already grown, seem decent. She’ll live okay.” As good as it was likely to get, then. Nodding, they look away again. The mother has finished eating. Her children are playing with one of the brahmin’s heads now, bits of flesh still hanging off it. A moment passes. “Don’t know how you can stand watchin’ these things, nosebleed.”

It isn’t the first time they’ve been in a similar place. Lone often discovers deathclaw packs’ hiding places, finds a good spot to observe from a distance. It’s calming, in a weird, maybe fucked up way, to watch the most terrifying thing in the wasteland go about their daily lives. They’re not so different from people, in a lot of ways.

“They remind me of myself,” Lone says, pretending not to notice the bewildered look Butch gives them. “They’re ugly as shit and everyone’s terrified of ‘em, but when you take the time to pay attention, they’re just doing what they think is right. All they want is to eat and go on livin’ like any person does.” He doesn’t say anything to that, turning his gaze back down to the pack roaming across the quarry.

Twenty minutes of relatively comfortable silence pass. One of the males gets in a disagreement with an immature female, and he hits the ground when she strikes, effectively settling it. Even the males’ daughters are often dominant to them within the pack. As he gets up and slinks away from her, body language clearly displeased, Lone picks up their water and rises to their feet as well.

They drain the rest of the bottle, then shove it into their backpack. They heft it onto their shoulders, return their pistols to the holsters at their hips, and turn towards where Butch is looking up at them. “We better go if we still wanna clear out that raider nest tomorrow,” they tell him, and he reluctantly stands. They can tell he’s already growing tired with a life of wandering and fighting. It won’t be long before he abandons them to settle down somewhere. They think they’re okay with that.


	2. A Barber, Not a Hairdresser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a barber is a learned skill.

Stepping between the two semi-intact mirrors, carefully arranged to reflect each other and make the back of Lone’s head visible, they meet their own gaze in the glass. The urge to grimace and look away every time they see their own face is still strong, and being stripped down to their underwear doesn’t help. Nearly every inch of skin is covered in burns, deep shrapnel scarring or the very beginning of the rot-like texture common among ghouls.

Their face is bad, but their left shoulder is the worst. Fleetingly, they recall what they had been told upon finally waking up - the arm had been so horribly mangled there had been nothing worth saving. The Brotherhood medics had simply amputated it. Now a metal skeleton is in its place, screws embedded into bone and wires connected to nerves in ways Lone doesn’t entirely understand. All they know is that the fingers function and it can bear as much weight as the organic arm, and that’s enough.

Shaking their head, they pick up the razor from the small table they had dragged over earlier. A fresh fusion battery is fit into it, and they turn it on, lifting it to their head. Most of their hair is messily pinned to the top of their head, the rest lying against the sides to be shaved.

One, two, three passes on the left side, metal hand raising to fold their ear down on the fourth as they had seen Butch do so many times, carefully going around it. Switching hands, three more passes on the right side, carefully around their ear on the fourth. The back is a little more difficult, but they manage, albeit more slowly. A few extra, smaller swipes to get the bits they had missed initially, and they were quickly done, switching the razor back off.

The razor is set down on the table, and the bobby pins holding their hair up are carefully removed to be piled beside it. They pick up the scissors next as their hair falls down to cover the shaved parts. Trimming the ends as carefully as possible, they shorten it until there’s just barely enough to pull into a ponytail, and the scissors return to the table.

It doesn’t look as good as when Butch did it. A year and four hundred miles between them, and Lone is finally missing him. They wonder if it’s a bad sign that it took them this long. They wonder if they care. Dropping their gaze to the pile of black hair at their feet, they lift their hands to brush their shoulders off. They miss Dogmeat, too, and wonder if he’s died yet. His health wasn’t good when they left - it was why they decided to leave him behind. It occurs to them they never really knew how old the mutt was.

Sighing, they step out from between the mirrors and cross the bathroom towards the shower. As they get further west, they’re beginning to encounter more and more settlements with proper plumbing. They’re beyond grateful for that. Bits of hair are difficult to wash off without proper running water, and they prefer to avoid spending hours ridiculously itchy.


	3. Big Winner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Head injuries are a pain in the ass.

Lone wakes early, as they often do. Only the faintest traces of sunlight are peeking through the massive windows when they open their eyes, staring at the ceiling and orienting themselves. The warmth of another person beside them still feels foreign, even after months of it.

They slip carefully out of bed, doing their best to avoid disturbing Six where he still sleeps soundly. Their clothes lay scattered across the floor around the bed, and it takes Lone a moment to find their own underwear and pants, tugging them on. Stepping out of the bedroom, they close the door as softly as possible behind them, suppressing a wave of guilt at the look they receive from Rex where he lays on his bed. The faintest glow emanates from his glass brain case. Stepping over and shivering at the cold marble under their feet, they scratch behind his ears briefly before moving away.

Pausing in the kitchen just long enough to retrieve a Nuka-Cola from the refrigerator, Lone steps out onto the balcony. Part of them is still surprised by the activity on the street below, given the early hour. Part of them knows they should expect it. New Vegas never sleeps.

Settling down on the couch taking up part of the semi-circle balcony, they set their soda on the side table. Even so early in the morning, it's already begun to get hot, and the desert air makes their skin feel dry. Picking up a pack of cigarettes left out on the table, they slide one out, using the lighter tossed beside them to light it. They don’t remember when they picked up the habit, but see no reason to stop.

The neon lights that illuminate the strip at night are gradually going out. Loud, drunken laughter echoes up from the street, and shattering glass follows. They hear a Securitron’s mechanical voice a moment later, but can’t make out the words. In some ways, New Vegas has changed drastically since they arrived — in others, like the eternal presence of drunks on the streets, it remains the same.

They take a drag off the cigarette before momentarily setting it on the ashtray, once more lifting their soda bottle and popping the cap off to take a drink. The refrigerator works, most of the time, and the soda is pleasantly cold against the day’s rising heat. Lone almost prefers it room temperature, though — cold Nuka-Cola tastes different.

Time passes, and the sky lightens. They eventually put out their cigarette when it’s burned nearly all the way down. Finally, when the vibrant colors of sunrise are fading into proper blue, the door creaks open. Quiet footsteps cross the balcony, and Six settles onto the couch beside them, leaning against them and snuggling close. He’s only wearing his underwear, though Lone isn’t all that surprised by it.

Sliding an arm around him, they press a kiss against the top of his head before speaking. “Morning, sleepy.” He laughs softly, nuzzling his face against their chest and curling an arm around their middle. The slightest hint of stubble scratches against their skin.

“Mornin’,” he mumbles, voice still thick from sleep. He probably woke up and came straight outside. He lifts one hand to trace his fingers along their shoulder where flesh meets metal as the two of them fall silent.

It’s been eight months since Lone entered the Mojave, six since New Vegas came under Six’s control. They won’t deny the comfort and safety of a city that basically belongs to the two of them is nice, but they’re already starting to feel the itch to move. It’s almost too nice, too comfortable. A calm wasteland makes their skin crawl.

Fleetingly, they consider if Yes Man could come with them, were the two of them to leave. They don’t know how far he can extend his reach through a Securitron body. They consider if it would be in poor taste to ask, especially when they don’t even know yet if Six would go.

Not yet, though. He needs more time to recover. Some days he still can’t remember Lone’s name and takes a few prompts to get it. Granted, they have enough medical knowledge to know that won’t ever go away, not really. The two of them could live for another three hundred years and he’ll probably still forget things he did fifteen minutes ago.

He leans away when they sigh, pressing one hand flat against their chest and giving them a curious look, and Lone offers a faint smile in return. “We should do something,” they tell him after a brief pause, and Six raises an eyebrow, a clear ‘like what?’ Hesitating briefly, they glance down towards the strip and huff quietly. “Could go see if we can get banned from Gomorrah.”

Laughing, Six sits up more fully, moving one hand to the side of Lone’s face. “The ban from the Tops wasn’t enough for you?” he asks, and they give him an amused smile in return. The discovery that they could, in fact, win too much from gambling had been a bit startling.

“What’s the fun in getting banned from one casino when we could get banned from all of them?” they reply easily, and he rolls his eyes. Shoving himself more upright, he rises to his feet, grabbing their hand to pull them up with him before heading for the door back into the suite.

They gladly trail after him, content to get dressed before heading downstairs through the busy casino on the bottom floor of the Lucky 38, stepping out of the dim interior onto the busy Strip. For now, at least, they’re willing to keep finding ways to stay busy and hang around. They dread the day they have to talk to him about leaving. It can wait.


	4. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving places behind is easy. People are not.

There’s a lot to see in the wasteland of what had once been America. In the years since leaving the Capital Wasteland, Lone has seen a lot of them — even in just the small part of the country they’ve traversed so far. Still, they quickly decide few could match up to the city of Icamna. It’s easily the closest thing to true civilization they’ve seen so far. Rivet City is laughable in comparison. The towns upon towns full to the brim with cannibals, murderers, corruption and worse are nauseating in light of it.

The people of Icamna, they’re told shortly after arriving, are almost all the descendants of the Lakota tribe; the city is built on the land their people were restricted to by the pre-war government. It is by far the most thorough and loving attempt to rebuild society that Lone has seen thus far. Not a single building within the walls of the city is built on old world foundations; every home, business and public office has been built from scratch with scavenged and reworked materials. Not one is older than a century and a half, and construction is still ongoing in parts of the city.

The walls themselves, though, are what really stand out, and what attracted Lone and Butch to the city in the first place. They stand over fifty feet high, patrolled day and night by heavily armed guards, and encompass not only the city proper but miles of farm and ranch land around it in any direction. Despite the unfriendly, unwelcoming impression the walls initially give, travelers and caravans flow steadily in and out of the city each day, through gates kept wide open during most of the daylight hours.

Initially, the two of them — and Dogmeat — only stopped in the city with the intention of resupplying and resting for a few days before they could move on again. Three weeks later, Lone’s begun to wonder just when they’re actually going to leave. Fleetingly, they contemplate if they can imagine staying indefinitely.

The realization that they can’t is quick, and they don’t consider the idea again.

Still, their stay in the city has taught Lone a number of things. The first of which, of course, is the fact that the wasteland is nowhere near as hopelessly desolate as the Capital had given them the impression it was. Areas of it may be, but there are certainly parts of the country — and beyond, possibly — that are no worse off for comfort than the old world.

Another interesting discovery that they make is that, despite the insistence further east that they hadn’t survived the apocalypse, there are still horses. Horses distinctly different from the ones Lone recalls seeing pictures of in old books, fur and hair patchy with their necks splitting into two heads just below the base of the skulls, but horses nonetheless. Between the ponies of Icamna, brahmin, and the radstags out east, Lone has to wonder if it’s just something about hoofed animals that results in the post-war variants having two distinct heads.

They spend much of their time loitering about the marketplace, watching the citizens of the city. Enough ghouls inhabit the area that, for once, they don’t receive an especially high number of discomforted looks even with their helmet off. Still, they look enough distinctly different from the average ghoul to get curious stares as they sit on a bench off to the side, nursing a lukewarm Nuka-Cola. They haven’t told Butch yet, but they’ve begun preparing to leave. The urge to move is strong, near overwhelming, and they’re indifferent enough to the city despite its curiosities to have no desire to resist it.

Butch, on the other hand… Lone already knows he isn’t coming. The realization set in days ago as he rambled at length about the cute boy he met in a bar shortly after arriving and has been talking to regularly since. He’s going to stay here, and eventually ask the boy out, and Lone will continue on alone. Dogmeat, they muse as they watch the flow of foot traffic, will stay too. He’s gotten old — they don’t have the slightest idea how old the mutt was when they took him in, but his age has begun to show in graying about the muzzle and a difficulty rising from bed in the morning. They have no desire to push him to continue until his body gives out, so he’ll stay with Butch, getting fat in his retirement. Within a few years, he’ll be dead.

The thought of being alone again is terrifying, and the only reason Lone hasn’t already left. They are, they suppose, not called the Lone Wanderer for nothing. They were alone when they started their life in the wastes, and they imagine they’ll be alone when they end it. Whether that’ll be in five years or a hundred is hard to say, but they have little doubt they’ll go out on their own. They can’t help but smile a bit down at their soda as they consider that they will, if nothing else, leave a legend behind. Their journey west has been slow and winding enough that they’ve already heard whispers of rumors about themselves from strangers met on the way.

Most of it, of course, is laughably untrue. But the meat of the story, of what they did, holds merit regardless of how many mouths it passes through. They’ve quickly discovered that most people who know of them believe them dead, and haven’t the slightest idea what they really look like. They think they like it that way.

The music playing on the nearby radio fades out to be replaced with the evening news, and Lone throws back the last of their soda before rising to their feet. Tossing the empty bottle in a nearby garbage can, they start off in the direction of the hotel they and Butch have been staying at, rehearsing in their head once again what they’re going to tell him. He isn’t going to take it well. They don’t expect him to.


	5. This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough to Escape Trauma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The effects of having your body invaded and violated are hard to shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just an extended metaphor for sexual assault using the events of mothership zeta. read at your own discretion.

The world is blue.

A sickly, cyan blue, a color that can only be associated with pain. The air shimmers and distorts, everything going blurry as the blue fades slowly.

A blink, and suddenly everything is in focus, just in time to see the endless expanse of blackness dotted with distant stars in all directions from Lone. They’re standing on the smooth, silver surface of a large ship — and then they’re not, their feet slipping off the edge, two hands sheathed in shimmery silver fabric reaching to claw pointlessly at the metal beneath them as they drift away from it. Their own breathing echoes loudly in their ears.

Another blink, and they’re lying on their back, completely naked on the cold metal of an examination table, wrists and ankles strapped down. Three green faces hover above them, bulbous black eyes staring down at them as robotic arms orient over their body. Various tools are attached to the ends of the arms, and one with a glowing, cyan blue, knife-like laser lowers toward them.

With a third blink, the aliens are gone, and in their place four familiar human faces stare down at Lone instead. The laser has not stopped lowering toward them, and it disappears from their field of view. Their one-time companions continue to stare in silence as burning pain shoots through their abdomen.

A fourth blink, and the faces of not quite human, not quite alien abominations hover over them instead, unnaturally wide mouths grinning. Their wide black eyes look disconcertingly empty, but Lone can’t look away even as the pain spreads through the rest of their body.

A shrill scream fills their ears, growing more distant as the world darkens around them.

Jolting upright in bed, Lone’s flesh hand flies down to their stomach, fingertips tracing over the raised scar stretching from one hip to the other just below the curve of their belly, still distinct even among all the others. Their chest heaves, the back of their throat burning with the urge to vomit. Six stirs beside them, one of his arms curled around his pillow beneath his head and gripping it a little tighter, but his eyes remain closed when they glance over.

Drawing in a slow, steadying breath, they rise from bed as carefully as possible, squinting at the floor as they use only the little bit of light from the moon and city beneath them that manages to make it through the curtains to find underwear. They head out of the bedroom as quickly as possible, tugging their boxers on as they go, shutting the door behind them with a silence few could accomplish. The curtains over the windows of the main hall are left open, letting the light in to shimmer on the water of the pool set into the marble floor and highlight the coppery brown of Lone’s skin as they stand outside the door.

Swallowing hard, they step forward across the cold marble, sinking down to sit at the top of one of the sets of steps into the pool. The water laps at their toes as their feet rest a couple steps down, stirred by the filters and heater always running. Their flesh hand curls into a fist against their stomach as they lean forward, a silent sob making them shudder, the metal one on the floor beside them.

Minutes pass as they sit silently like that, until finally a warm, furry body brushes up against them, making Lone jump slightly. Rex’s brown eyes look sad when they meet Lone’s gray, the skin around them flushed red from crying. Leaning more heavily into the dog, Lone finally manages to slow their breathing, gradually matching it to Rex’s. Part of them suddenly misses Dogmeat, but the presence of the cyberdog is just as welcome.

They relate to him in a number of ways, with his robotic limbs and bodily autonomy stolen from him decades ago.

If asked, Lone still wouldn’t be able to say what exactly was taken from or done to them onboard Zeta, except that it was excruciatingly painful and that they got off lucky compared to the hybrid abominations they’d found and slaughtered. Frankly, they weren’t even entirely sure they still had all their proper organs, and had never been able to bear asking any of the numerous doctors they’d seen to examine them.

All twenty-five of the captive logs are still stored on their Pip-Boy, long after they’ve erased many of the other remnants of the Capital Wasteland. Every now and then they’ll bring one up to listen to again. Some are forgettable, while others are burned into their mind.

A lot of things about their experience on the ship were horrifying. The human-alien hybrids, the gore and viscera of alien experiments scattered about, the evidence that it had been happening for hundreds of years. The massive explosion and crater visible from space left when their fingers slipped on the death ray controls, shaking from exhaustion. The second mothership drifting slowly down to the planet’s surface.

The most horrific, most unforgettable of it all, though, is still being strapped down and sliced open, every inch of their body invaded. Sometimes thinking about it makes them want to tear their own skin off, rip their abdomen open to see with their own eyes what was done there. Their fingers dig into their own stomach until Rex’s cold, wet nose brushes against their bare shoulder and their hand relaxes again.

“Thanks, bud,” Lone mumbles, lightly patting him on the head as they stand again, feet damp as they step away from the pool. They wonder if Arcade would examine them if they asked as they head back toward the bedroom.


	6. Predilection for Raw Human Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Potential eventualities are hard to swallow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some very mild gore and a murder.

It feels cold even despite the summer sun beating down on the stiff black material of the stealth suit, the young woman standing at Lone’s side making it that way. Her pale face is flushed red and her eyes swollen from the tears streaming over her cheeks, one arm curled against her chest and the other hand gripping her heavily bandaged forearm. The stimpak she had been given should be slowly healing the strip of flesh ripped off by bare teeth beneath it.

Sometimes, Lone wonders how they get into these situations. They had been walking down the worn road to the one store up and running in the small town when the girl stumbled out of her front door and slammed it behind her, sobbing hysterically as she fumbled to lock it.

For just a moment, they had thought about continuing onward without stopping.

Instead, they sacrificed some of their dwindling medical supplies to fix her up the best they could and sat her down to ask what happened.

She was, she had revealed, living with a ghoul. They were as close as siblings and had shared a home for the last five years. She managed to stutter out that he had been getting increasingly violent over the last few months, occasionally lashing out at her when they got into arguments, which they had begun to get into often. That morning, he had been standing in the kitchen, motionless except for occasional twitches of the head and hands, and when she approached to check on him he attacked her. There had been nothing close to recognition left in him.

He’d gone feral.

Some people said that going feral was an inevitability for ghouls, that it happened to everyone eventually, though nobody seemed to understand why exactly some succumbed sooner than others. Lone doesn’t entirely believe that, having met enough ghouls from before or shortly after the war to feel that it’s perfectly possible for one to live without becoming a zombie indefinitely.

Still, there’s no denying that plenty have been witnessed living for years, even decades, before seemingly abruptly losing their minds. Lone tries not to think about whether or not that will eventually be their fate.

Letting out a slow breath, they close their eyes for a moment before lifting one gloved hand, undoing the clasps on their helmet and hooking their fingers beneath it to pull it back. The slight orange haze over the world disappears as the visor slides away, the hood settling against the back of their neck, and they see the young woman’s eyes widen a little beside them. They hadn’t bothered to ask her name yet, they realize, then decide they don’t want to know before they can speak.

A moment of silence passes as Lone regards the small house in front of them, the peeling pale blue paint covering the outer walls and patches of bare wood where it’s disappeared entirely. “Do you want me to take care of it for you?” they ask, finally, turning their gaze down to the girl beside them. Tears well in her eyes again and cascade down her face as she immediately comprehends what they’re asking. “I’ll make it quick,” they add, lightly patting Blackhawk where it’s holstered at their hip, and her gaze drifts down to the pistol as she considers.

“Are you sure there’s—there’s nothing else?” she asks, her voice small and timid, and Lone grimaces slightly. Her expression falls. There’s no cure for going feral, at least not that Lone has encountered yet. They’re not sure anyone cares enough to look for one. Her gaze drops to the grass beneath their feet, and she stands silently for another moment. “As long as it doesn’t hurt. Either of you. Won’t he attack you?” Her concern is almost touching, if unnecessary.

Giving her a grim smile, Lone shakes their head a little, holding one hand out for the key to the door. She stares blankly for a moment before quickly digging around in her pocket. “Ferals don’t attack other ghouls,” they reply once she drops it onto their palm, turning to walk down the short sidewalk to the door before she can say anything else.

Lone is often surprised more people don’t put two and two together. Their face is certainly fucked up enough to pass for a ghoul even when the proper ghoulification process is still in its early stages, and their voice has rapidly taken on the raspy quality so well-associated with ghouls in the last few years.

They unlock the door, slipping inside the small house and locking it again behind them, tucking the key into a small pouch on the stealth suit’s belt. It doesn’t take them long to find the feral where he’s stayed in the kitchen, crouching on the floor. A splatter of blood is staining the tile near him, and his mouth is bloody as well when he whips his head around to stare. He sniffs the air loudly and eyes Lone as they approach, but there’s no true comprehension in his face.

Lone stops a few steps away, standing still and keeping their breaths carefully even, and eventually he loses interest, going back to staring blankly at the floor. With the dead silence of a movement practiced thousands of times, they slide Blackhawk from its holster, fingers curled around the wooden grip and a thumb cocking the gun. Two soft clicks make the feral’s head twitch, and Lone pauses until he relaxes again.

They told the woman outside they’d make it quick, so they will, but that requires the feral to be unsuspecting.

His death is quick and easy, a single bullet from the powerful pistol to the back of his skull killing him near-instantly. His body’s position holds for just a moment as a path is carved through his brain before he collapses, and Lone takes a moment to carefully lay him out, fingers brushing his eyes closed.

Nobody in the wasteland is a stranger to death, but it doesn’t need to be any harder than necessary.

Part of Lone feels guilty every time they kill a feral, and that guilt twists in their gut as they tuck their pistol away again. That could very well be them someday. On the other hand, killing them is a relief, a mercy — Lone knows with certainty they hope that someone will take them out before they go full feral.

They leave without accepting whatever payment the woman fumbles to give them and continue on to their original goal, shoving down the discomfort over their actions.


	7. Unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just gotta fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just porn and nothing else.

After over a year together, falling into bed with him is easy.

He shuts the door behind them when they drag their feet into the presidential suite’s master bedroom, closing Rex out for the night, and his desert-dry lips are pressed up against Lone’s before they even make it to the bed.

Six presses them up against the narrow bit of wall next to the door into their bathroom, and Lone’s right hand lifts instinctively to his hair, tugging out the leather band that holds it back to free his mahogany mane. Their metallic left hand settles on his hip, finger joints creaking softly as they curl to dig lightly into his flesh.

By the time the two of them stumble their way across the room to the bed, Lone’s shirt is pulled most of the way off, stuck on their Pip-Boy, and their belt and pants are both undone, hanging open. The backs of their legs hit the bed and they sit down heavily, the old mattress groaning quietly beneath their weight.

Six is quick to crawl into their lap, his warm hands settling on their chest to push them backward, only leaning away once he’s content they intend to remain laying down. While he busies himself pulling off his shirt, Lone fumbles with their Pip-Boy where it sits on their metal forearm to undo the latch on its underside. The battered device lands with a heavy clunk on the floor beside the bed, their shirt draping over it a beat later.

It’s only then that they register the curtains over the large windows dominating one side of the room are still open. The glow of the lights of Vegas and the near-full moon rising over the desert is more than enough light to not require turning on the lamps beside the bed. “Gonna leave the windows?” Lone asks, and Six pauses, glancing over his shoulder as he arches his back in a stretch. Typically they would have closed the curtains shortly after sunset, but they had been out until nearly midnight.

“Someone wants to go to all the effort of lookin’ in ‘em, they’re welcome to watch,” he replies dismissively, and Lone has to admit he has a point. The Lucky 38 towers over every other building on the Strip, and being able to look in its uppermost windows would require an immense amount of effort. Snorting softly, Lone accepts his decision without a word, right hand lifting from the bed to trace their fingertips lightly across his chest.

Sighing softly at the touch, Six’s eyes flutter shut, both of his hands returning to Lone’s chest. The glowing light from outside adds a cool hint to his normally warm skin, the dark red-brown reminiscent to them of the early autumn trees further east, and highlights starkly the numerous scars and areas where the texture is rough with the start of his ghoulification. There’s something reassuring to Lone about not being the only one between them covered in scarring. Eyes opening again a moment later, Six glances down at them with a grin, leaning in a little closer. “‘Sides,” he murmurs, “ain’t it a little hot to think someone could look in and see us?”

With a quiet, surprised laugh, Lone obediently tilts their head to give him access as Six reaches back to tug their hair from its ponytail. They still keep the sides of their head shaved, especially in the Mojave heat, but they’ve let the rest grow to the longest its ever been since leaving the Capital, reaching nearly to their shoulders when freed. Running his fingers through the strands, he leans down to kiss them again.

Six lifts his weight from Lone’s lap long enough to shimmy out of his jeans, discarding them onto the floor, and the lacy underwear he’s wearing beneath, cock clearly outlined through them, reveal that his pushiness is not an impulsive decision. Biting back a smile and shaking their head a little, Lone drops both hands to grip his hips, pulling him firmly down against them again. Sighing contentedly, he rests his hands on his own thighs, pressing down into the touch and tilting his head back.

He lingers for a moment longer, rolling his hips down against Lone’s in slow, firm motions, before he leans down onto his hands and knees, crawling forward on the bed until he can reach the nightstand to tug the drawer open. Tilting their head back, they press a kiss against Six’s dick through his underwear as he kneels over their face, and he makes a soft noise above them.

Lone shifts a little to reach both hands down as Six rummages in the drawer, shoving down on their pants and underwear until they can kick them the rest of the way off to pile on the floor. Finally sitting back, Six settles on their chest, dropping the bottle of lube beside their head and running the backs of his fingers along the side of their face. “You bottomin’?” he asks after a beat, and the look Lone gives him clearly says that’s a dumb question.

Six lifts his weight off of them with a laugh, swinging one leg over to kneel beside them instead as he opens up the lube, coating the fingers of one hand before he sets it aside again. He slips down off of the bed, adjusting to settle on his knees between Lone’s legs, leaving a scattering of kisses up the insides of their thighs. One lube-slick finger brushes against their hole and Six bites back a grin at how much the contact makes their cock twitch.

It doesn’t take long, a few minutes at most, for Lone to be squirming and desperate once Six has a couple fingers in them. “You’re so easy,” he chuckles, and they huff quietly and tilt their head away, heat blossoming across their face. It certainly doesn’t help that he hasn’t touched their dick at all, and they strongly suspect he’ll just swat their hand away if they try.

Six gives a firm thrust of his fingers before sliding them out of Lone, rising to his feet and hooking his thumbs in his underwear to finally shove them down, freeing his own flushed dick from where it had been pinned against him. Curling the fingers of his lubed up hand around it, Six settles between their legs again as he lazily strokes along it a couple times and rests the head against them.

A beat passes before Lone speaks up, “Gonna fuck me or what, cowboy?” The hard thrust of Six’s hips forward turns their breathy words into a gasp, and they wrap their legs tightly around his hips, back arching. The metal fingers of their left hand curl in the sheets, gripping tightly, and they lift their right hand to Six’s chest, fingertips tracing the furrows of scars.

Every forward thrust of his hips draws a whine from their throat, increasing in pitch when he slips a hand between them to curl around Lone’s dick, stroking in time with his own movements. He leans down toward them, lips tracing across their throat until he finds a less ragged patch of skin to close his mouth over and suck firmly, and Lone can't contain a loud noise at the change in angle.

Neither of them lasts nearly as long as Lone would like. They come first, back arching and metal fingers creaking unhappily as they grip the sheets tighter. Cock throbbing in Six's hold, they manage a few breathless, gaspy noises as their stomach is streaked with white. Within a few seconds, muscles still taut, they feel Six jerk his hips a little more erratically and their insides are flooded with warmth.

A minute passes with their quiet panting the only noise in the room, gradually relaxing against each other, and the room grows briefly darker as a rare cloud passes over the moon beyond the windows. “Someday you'll be the death of me,” Lone finally manages, more raspy even than usual, and Six's only response is a tired laugh.


	8. Radiation Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't seem like a proper medical practice.

Before anything else, they register the high-pitched, frantic _click-click-click_ of their Pip-Boy's geiger counter. The thought fleetingly crosses their mind that they're still in the control chamber, and then other things begin to set in.

Their entire body hurts. The entirety of their face, it feels like, is in searing pain — there's too much to pick out one pain spot from another. It spreads out, becoming further apart, further down their body, patches of their abdomen and legs nearly pain-free.

Then there's their shoulder. As the ache there registers with their brain, they grit their teeth to hold back a scream, fingers curling tightly into fists.

The fingers of their right hand curl tightly into a fist, anyway.

Lone's eyes flick open abruptly at the realization their left hand didn't move, and they immediately squint shut again as the bright white lights sear their retinas. They caught a brief glimpse of a tiled, only slightly stained ceiling above them, but can't begin to guess where they are.

The second time Lone is more careful, opening their eyes slowly and avoiding looking directly up. They're laying on a slightly raised bed, a thin sheet pulled to their lower chest, and just off to one side is an open radioactive barrel.

They stare for a moment, bewildered by its presence and more so by the fact they don't at all feel sick, and then they remember what caught their attention in the first place. Lone's gaze jumps down to their left arm, and a gasp escapes them when they find nothing there.

The shoulder is wrapped in a thick layer of bandages, flat where their arm should connect, and they lift their other hand to gingerly touch it. Much of that arm is swathed in bandages, too, though nowhere near to the same degree, and Lone realizes absently that they're stripped to their t-shirt and boxers.

They wonder for just a moment where their things have gone, until the sound of their Pip-Boy clicking filters back in and draws their gaze. On a medical cart reminiscent of those in the Vault rests their stealth suit, neatly folded, with their Pip-Boy sitting on top, and the bag of their other supplies is on the floor beside it. The constant noise of the geiger counter is already verging on maddening, but they can't reach it from where they lay.

Lone struggles to put the pieces together. They remember activating Project Purity, already growing weak from the room's radiation, and the console bursting into shrapnel as it was overworked. From there is a stretch of nothing at all. The Brotherhood, they suppose, could have dragged them out, brought them back to the Citadel upon miraculously discovering they were alive.

That doesn't explain the arm, or the seemingly harmless irradiating.

Closing their eyes again, Lone struggles to take slow, steadying breaths, fighting back the urge to panic. Or vomit. Or both.

Bracing themselves once they no longer feel on the verge of a meltdown, Lone uses their right hand to shove themself into a sitting position. The room spins, and they lurch to the side, dry heaving over the edge of the bed. Nothing comes up, and the small raised-by-a-doctor part of their brain registers that as bad.

The episode passes, and Lone squints down at the floor as a few seconds pass before sitting up again, more careful this time. Every muscle screams in agony as they move, and they struggle to keep the momentum going, knowing they'll never get up if they stop again. The sheet is shoved back, their legs painfully swung one at a time over the bed's edge, and then they're on their feet. Unsteady and swaying a bit, but standing.

They hobble the few steps over to the steel cart, reaching out to activate their Pip-Boy's screen. A few miserable moments of fumbling through the settings, and then the incessant clicking is finally gone, silence sweeping into the room. Resting their hand on the cart's cold metal surface, they lean their weight into it and wonder why they haven't cried.

By all means, Lone should be dead. Some horrible stroke of luck kept them breathing, but with the pain their body is desperately trying to get them to pay attention to, they wish it hadn't.

Leaning down, they flip their bag open, fumbling blindly through the contents without their Pip-Boy until they find the syringe of Med-X they're looking for. The pain of the needle is the most insignificant it’s ever felt beneath everything else when Lone finally manages to inject it.

A minute passes, motionless but for the slightest swaying on their feet, as the painkiller kicks in and alleviates a little of the agony.

Tossing the empty syringe onto the cart, Lone lifts their gaze to glance around until they spot the door, hobbling toward it with dragging feet. It takes far longer than it should, but eventually they open the door, bare feet chilled by the wood floor beneath them as they step into the hallway.

They're greeted by ecstatic barking, and Dogmeat bounds several feet down the hall, tail wagging furiously as he bows in front of them, tongue lolling from his mouth to drip strings of drool on the floor.

Lone finally cries.

Tears well up and spill over without warning as they sink to their knees, Dogmeat promptly crawling into their lap to lick their face. Everywhere he touches throbs, and their arm begs them to stop as they wrap it around him, yet all they can do is bury their face in his furry neck and sob.

Voices echo down the hall, some familiar and others strangers, with an even mixture of excitement and concern. Lone can't manage to look up, shaking against their mutt as he wiggles excitedly, everything seeming to crash down on them at once. There'll be plenty of time to think about how badly they hurt later.


End file.
